[Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

[Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

Hi!

I am an occasional editor of Wikipedia, I read it a lot, I edit
sometimes, and I am at all not familiar with bureaucracies and rules
Wikipedia community has developed through years (call me lazy, but
they simply always look too scary and too many for me to even start
reading them, walls and walls of text). When I interact with Wikipedia
I thus try to assume what reasonable rules for creating a
collaborative source of all human knowledge would be.

As such I would like to share one positive feedback and one negative
feedback (frustration). The latter comes from my surprise between what
I would assume rules would be and what I have experienced. I am
sharing this to help prevent similar frustrations to other editors who
maybe be less persistent than me and just give up.

I am also guessing this has come up again and again in the past.

Anyway. First the positive feedback. I love the visual editor! I
finally switched to it and I am not going back! This is a life saver
for somebody who just occasionally edits Wikipedia. No need to anymore
guess if I should use single [ ] or double [[ ]]. No need to try to
remember the syntax for references every time when I am editing
Wikipedia after few months pause. Great job!

But the negative feedback comes from me getting too enthusiastic about
my new visual editor experience and I decided to create some my own
new articles instead of just editing existing ones. The result was
that one of such articles was speedily deleted without any due
process, because it was deemed insignificant, no discussion, in a day.

The whole notion of insignificant and not notable articles comes to me
as a surprise. It seems to me as a legacy of printed encyclopedias
which were limited in number of pages printed. But an online
encyclopedia? How is this possible?

Why I have problems with this:

I created an English article which is significant at least for people
in Slovenia, with references to local news articles. How can other
editors who might not know the subject, and are not from Slovenia,
decide that this is not significant and just delete a page, without
even starting a discussion? I commented on the talk page citing
reasons and it was simply ignored, and everything deleted? Why is not
enough to put a notice there to improve the article? Allow others to
add content, explain more, give their input?

So, a general question is: how can we build a global encyclopedia with
editors who does not understand significance of a particular article
in a local environment?

Why are articles simply deleted instead of guiding users on how to improve them?

Why there is no process involved where interested people could discuss
why is something significant? A voting process where people could say
"oh, I care about this"?

Furthermore, everything happened in a day. There are timezones
involved, some of us have to do other things in our lives. Are you
sure that such short deadlines really foster global community? If this
is something which is regularly done at Wikipedia, I think that this
is coming from a big position of privilege. Of editors who can be in
front of their computers the whole day and engage in editing the
Wikipedia all the time. Not everyone can afford that. Especially
looking at this globally. One day notice? This is crazy.

But my main issue is conceptual. Why is there such a rule in the first
place? Why are we deleting anything except for things which are not
true? Is Internet too small to have all human knowledge in one place?
Why it is a problem if some Wikipedia article is cared by "only" 100
people? 1000 people? Will it run out of disk space?

I think this comes from the reason that we are trying to copy what is
encyclopedia too much without adapting the idea to the 21st century.
It is like academic papers which had selection because it was costly
to print it, but in 21st century we can have then academic journals
which simply accept all submissions, only that they are technically
sound (in case of Wikipedia, that they have structure of an
encyclopedia article, with all other rules about the content of the
article, and references). See Plos One:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLOS_ONE This revolutionized academia.
And I think Wikipedia should do a similar thing.

One reason I found is that the issue why deleting articles is that
there is a limited attention of editors. If there are too many
articles editors would not be able to maintain good quality for all of
them.

I cannot agree with this argument. This is the most short-sighted
argument ever. First, all articles start by being low quality and then
they improve. Second, by allowing new articles to exist, you are also
getting new editors who care about those new articles. The article I
created? Guess what, you would have at least one editor (me) who would
care about it. Now you have 0.5 editor less (me) who cares about
anything else less now.

This is a feedback loop. More content you allow, more editors you will
have. Invite people to write about fiction they love, local spaces,
local events, everything. If it is true, if it has a form of an
encyclopedia article, why it could not exist?

We could create special tags instead deletion or a warning at the top
of the article:

"Warning: article has a small readerbase and might lack in quality. Be
extra wary of potential untruths and errors in the article."

Done. Wikipedia grows, Wikipedia is happy, and new editors do not get
frustrated. So simple.

Yes, people will say. But we are building encyclopedia. Encyclopedia
has to have only notable entries. Yes. In 20st century and before.
Maybe it is time we reinvent encyclopedia? And maybe we are doing more
than just encyclopedia, but "a collaborative source of all human
knowledge", in a form of encyclopedia.

I just hope this rule does not exist only so that Wikia has a business
model. You remove pages from Wikipedia so that people have to go to
Wikia. Why?

Why introducing artificial scarcity?

Without such rules to back them up, trigger happy editors would not be
deleting articles. Instead, editors like me would have time and
opportunity to improve them, and articles might through time be proven
significant because people would stumble upon them and you would see
stats of readerbase. Now, nobody can know how many readers are in fact
searching for that article on Google but cannot find it.

I know it is impossible to change anything in how Wikipedia operates.
It is just too big and has too big momentum in a way it is already
doing things. But please please consider changing this rules. No need
for deletion. Just mark them. Grey them out. Let's have another state
between "existing" and "non-existing". Like "articles in limbo". They
are not part of encyclopedia, but they are part of human knowledge. We
are unsure about them.

Thanks for your attention, to those who managed to read through my
long rant. Sorry.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

Hi Mitar,

I haven't been on Wiki-l that long so not sure how (or if) people respond
to this issue, which is somewhat common. I will take a stab at responding
and will try to keep it short and sweet as you said you don't want a lot of
Wiki:Rulz....

First off:
Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
help / resolution.

This happens a lot. Here at Wikimedia NYC, where support a lot of
editathons with new users, who tend to want to create new pages, speedy
deletion of articles as well as edits is unfortunately common.

I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.

Third off:

The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware of
them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion and
thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place....

Potential solutions:

The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to create
new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
you have at least 5 (or even 10) very solid citations. Have a friendly
editor take a look at the article before attempting to move it to the main
space.

It is critical you use the citations to establish notability. Not
everything is notable, and especially if the Wiki-en audience isn't
knowledgeable of the subject matter, it's even more important.

I know (and vouch for) DGG and he's queued a few articles I've worked on
for deletion. :-) He and many folks doing Articles for Deletion / Speedy
Deletion are well-intentioned, but sometimes it is a bit of an active
discussion. I suspect that folks who are evaluating deletions are doing it
quickly sometimes, and don't always have the context, but their goal is to
"protect" Wiki content, so....

> Hi!
>
> I am an occasional editor of Wikipedia, I read it a lot, I edit
> sometimes, and I am at all not familiar with bureaucracies and rules
> Wikipedia community has developed through years (call me lazy, but
> they simply always look too scary and too many for me to even start
> reading them, walls and walls of text). When I interact with Wikipedia
> I thus try to assume what reasonable rules for creating a
> collaborative source of all human knowledge would be.
>
> As such I would like to share one positive feedback and one negative
> feedback (frustration). The latter comes from my surprise between what
> I would assume rules would be and what I have experienced. I am
> sharing this to help prevent similar frustrations to other editors who
> maybe be less persistent than me and just give up.
>
> I am also guessing this has come up again and again in the past.
>
> Anyway. First the positive feedback. I love the visual editor! I
> finally switched to it and I am not going back! This is a life saver
> for somebody who just occasionally edits Wikipedia. No need to anymore
> guess if I should use single [ ] or double [[ ]]. No need to try to
> remember the syntax for references every time when I am editing
> Wikipedia after few months pause. Great job!
>
> But the negative feedback comes from me getting too enthusiastic about
> my new visual editor experience and I decided to create some my own
> new articles instead of just editing existing ones. The result was
> that one of such articles was speedily deleted without any due
> process, because it was deemed insignificant, no discussion, in a day.
>
> The whole notion of insignificant and not notable articles comes to me
> as a surprise. It seems to me as a legacy of printed encyclopedias
> which were limited in number of pages printed. But an online
> encyclopedia? How is this possible?
>
> Why I have problems with this:
>
> I created an English article which is significant at least for people
> in Slovenia, with references to local news articles. How can other
> editors who might not know the subject, and are not from Slovenia,
> decide that this is not significant and just delete a page, without
> even starting a discussion? I commented on the talk page citing
> reasons and it was simply ignored, and everything deleted? Why is not
> enough to put a notice there to improve the article? Allow others to
> add content, explain more, give their input?
>
> So, a general question is: how can we build a global encyclopedia with
> editors who does not understand significance of a particular article
> in a local environment?
>
> Why are articles simply deleted instead of guiding users on how to improve
> them?
>
> Why there is no process involved where interested people could discuss
> why is something significant? A voting process where people could say
> "oh, I care about this"?
>
> Furthermore, everything happened in a day. There are timezones
> involved, some of us have to do other things in our lives. Are you
> sure that such short deadlines really foster global community? If this
> is something which is regularly done at Wikipedia, I think that this
> is coming from a big position of privilege. Of editors who can be in
> front of their computers the whole day and engage in editing the
> Wikipedia all the time. Not everyone can afford that. Especially
> looking at this globally. One day notice? This is crazy.
>
> But my main issue is conceptual. Why is there such a rule in the first
> place? Why are we deleting anything except for things which are not
> true? Is Internet too small to have all human knowledge in one place?
> Why it is a problem if some Wikipedia article is cared by "only" 100
> people? 1000 people? Will it run out of disk space?
>
> I think this comes from the reason that we are trying to copy what is
> encyclopedia too much without adapting the idea to the 21st century.
> It is like academic papers which had selection because it was costly
> to print it, but in 21st century we can have then academic journals
> which simply accept all submissions, only that they are technically
> sound (in case of Wikipedia, that they have structure of an
> encyclopedia article, with all other rules about the content of the
> article, and references). See Plos One:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLOS_ONE This revolutionized academia.
> And I think Wikipedia should do a similar thing.
>
> One reason I found is that the issue why deleting articles is that
> there is a limited attention of editors. If there are too many
> articles editors would not be able to maintain good quality for all of
> them.
>
> I cannot agree with this argument. This is the most short-sighted
> argument ever. First, all articles start by being low quality and then
> they improve. Second, by allowing new articles to exist, you are also
> getting new editors who care about those new articles. The article I
> created? Guess what, you would have at least one editor (me) who would
> care about it. Now you have 0.5 editor less (me) who cares about
> anything else less now.
>
> This is a feedback loop. More content you allow, more editors you will
> have. Invite people to write about fiction they love, local spaces,
> local events, everything. If it is true, if it has a form of an
> encyclopedia article, why it could not exist?
>
> We could create special tags instead deletion or a warning at the top
> of the article:
>
> "Warning: article has a small readerbase and might lack in quality. Be
> extra wary of potential untruths and errors in the article."
>
> Done. Wikipedia grows, Wikipedia is happy, and new editors do not get
> frustrated. So simple.
>
> Yes, people will say. But we are building encyclopedia. Encyclopedia
> has to have only notable entries. Yes. In 20st century and before.
> Maybe it is time we reinvent encyclopedia? And maybe we are doing more
> than just encyclopedia, but "a collaborative source of all human
> knowledge", in a form of encyclopedia.
>
> I just hope this rule does not exist only so that Wikia has a business
> model. You remove pages from Wikipedia so that people have to go to
> Wikia. Why?
>
> Why introducing artificial scarcity?
>
> Without such rules to back them up, trigger happy editors would not be
> deleting articles. Instead, editors like me would have time and
> opportunity to improve them, and articles might through time be proven
> significant because people would stumble upon them and you would see
> stats of readerbase. Now, nobody can know how many readers are in fact
> searching for that article on Google but cannot find it.
>
> I know it is impossible to change anything in how Wikipedia operates.
> It is just too big and has too big momentum in a way it is already
> doing things. But please please consider changing this rules. No need
> for deletion. Just mark them. Grey them out. Let's have another state
> between "existing" and "non-existing". Like "articles in limbo". They
> are not part of encyclopedia, but they are part of human knowledge. We
> are unsure about them.
>
> Thanks for your attention, to those who managed to read through my
> long rant. Sorry.
>
>
> Mitar
>
> --
> http://mitar.tnode.com/> https://twitter.com/mitar_m>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines> New messages to: [hidden email]> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

> Hi Mitar,
>
> ...
>
> First off:
> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
> to dig and find the page, etc.
>

Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
within wikipedia
is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
User page, it's ok in this case.

Mitar says.....
>
> Why introducing artificial scarcity?
>

You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
Deletionist war.
Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
travel among
Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
BBB. I guess
the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too much
to curate
satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.

I hope that doesn't discourage you from wikipedia. Also, consider
contributing to http://wikinfo.org , concept is similar but the rules are
different, more willing to accept polemics and non-neutrality

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

Hoi,
The English deletionists may be winning. Thank (include your deity) for
Wikidata. We can include much more and, we do include much more. It
includes more people who won an award that what English Wikipedia does.
Thanks,
GerardM

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> help / resolution.

I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
discuss principles behind my experience.

I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
bringing it here.

I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.

And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.

Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
readers that they are reading such a new article.

(Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
example, for all sides.)

Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
cited and might get a better picture.

The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
why I am writing to such general list like this.)

> I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
> moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
> would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.

But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we resolve it for
this particular page. Also, if a page is in my sandbox then it is only
on me to fix it and improve it. If it is its dedicated namespace then
others can help edit it because they can find it. This is the whole
power of Wikipedia, that it is not that one person has to write the
whole article, but that multiple people can collaborate.

Maybe a solution would be that an article can exist under its
namespace and link then to this sandbox version saying that article is
still in development. In general Wikipedia could be just an directory
of pages, some could be edited in Wikipedia and some could be linked
elsewhere, until they are seen as worthy of Wikipedia.

> The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
> procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware of
> them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion and
> thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place....

I followed instructions which were presented to me in the speedy
deletion tag: I opened a talk page for an article and objected to
deletion. The result was that next day the article was deleted without
any discussion.

What structures exist here?

I am talking about structures which would prevent deletion, and
structures which would help editors explain local significance of
articles. Structures which might exist to revert deletion are too
late. Editors might not return anymore.

> The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to create
> new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
> you have at least 5 (or even 10) very solid citations.

I had citations. It seems it was not enough.

> Have a friendly editor take a look at the article before attempting to move it to the main
> space.

Friendly editor? How am I supposed to find one? I do not want to be
harsh, but I am here to write content, not to mingle with other
editors and socialize. I have enough other things in my life. I can
understand that for some editors this is their online social
space/forum and they know each other. But for me is something where I
get to occasionally, I want to fix a thing I care about, and I move
on. If I find trash on the floor I pick it up and carry it to the
nearest thrash can. I do not want to interact with city utilities
system or talk to supervisors.

(BTW, talking to a friendly editor comes back to the issue of really
strange talk pages. Probably all you got used to them, but they are
really a mess.)

> It is critical you use the citations to establish notability. Not
> everything is notable, and especially if the Wiki-en audience isn't
> knowledgeable of the subject matter, it's even more important.

I did that. Of course, citations were to Slovenian news articles in
Slovenian, only one was in English. And this is why I started the
Wikipedia article. To bring more international exposure to a local
thing.

> but their goal is to "protect" Wiki content, so....

Hm, protect from what? Existence? If content is true, why it needs
protection? If content is not yet complete, guide it to being
complete.

BTW, you do realize that many of new people online and potential new
editors are not familiar with IRC? Mailing list are already

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 1:11 AM, carl hansen <[hidden email]> wrote:
> You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> Deletionist war.

Instead of waging war, could we open some discussion about middle
group solutions? For example, what is wrong with having such pages
tagged with "not an encyclopedia-grade article, possible lacking
notability and/or significance" and move on? And then we can discuss
the merits of that tag being applied to a particular article. Which is
much less new-editor-scary than a warning "page is nominated for
speedy deletion" and bam, deleted.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

This is amazing. I think John Oliver should make a segment "Wikipedia
Deletionism - how is this still a thing?"

I mean, is this a failure of Wikipedia community governance? Reading
about this seems deletionists are just a vocal minority who benefit
from the fact that deletion is much stronger action than keeping
things. Destruction is always easier than creation.

> Hi!
>
> Thank you for your responses.
>
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were working
>> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was able
>> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
>> help / resolution.
>
> I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> discuss principles behind my experience.
>
> I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> bringing it here.
>
> I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
>
> And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
>
> Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> readers that they are reading such a new article.
>
> (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> example, for all sides.)
>
>> Discussion (with reason):
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page>
> Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> cited and might get a better picture.
>
> The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
> why I am writing to such general list like this.)
>
>> I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
>> moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there, and I
>> would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.
>
> But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we resolve it for
> this particular page. Also, if a page is in my sandbox then it is only
> on me to fix it and improve it. If it is its dedicated namespace then
> others can help edit it because they can find it. This is the whole
> power of Wikipedia, that it is not that one person has to write the
> whole article, but that multiple people can collaborate.
>
> Maybe a solution would be that an article can exist under its
> namespace and link then to this sandbox version saying that article is
> still in development. In general Wikipedia could be just an directory
> of pages, some could be edited in Wikipedia and some could be linked
> elsewhere, until they are seen as worthy of Wikipedia.
>
>> The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
>> procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware of
>> them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion and
>> thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place....
>
> I followed instructions which were presented to me in the speedy
> deletion tag: I opened a talk page for an article and objected to
> deletion. The result was that next day the article was deleted without
> any discussion.
>
> What structures exist here?
>
> I am talking about structures which would prevent deletion, and
> structures which would help editors explain local significance of
> articles. Structures which might exist to revert deletion are too
> late. Editors might not return anymore.
>
>> The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to create
>> new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
>> you have at least 5 (or even 10) very solid citations.
>
> I had citations. It seems it was not enough.
>
>> Have a friendly editor take a look at the article before attempting to move it to the main
>> space.
>
> Friendly editor? How am I supposed to find one? I do not want to be
> harsh, but I am here to write content, not to mingle with other
> editors and socialize. I have enough other things in my life. I can
> understand that for some editors this is their online social
> space/forum and they know each other. But for me is something where I
> get to occasionally, I want to fix a thing I care about, and I move
> on. If I find trash on the floor I pick it up and carry it to the
> nearest thrash can. I do not want to interact with city utilities
> system or talk to supervisors.
>
> (BTW, talking to a friendly editor comes back to the issue of really
> strange talk pages. Probably all you got used to them, but they are
> really a mess.)
>
>> It is critical you use the citations to establish notability. Not
>> everything is notable, and especially if the Wiki-en audience isn't
>> knowledgeable of the subject matter, it's even more important.
>
> I did that. Of course, citations were to Slovenian news articles in
> Slovenian, only one was in English. And this is why I started the
> Wikipedia article. To bring more international exposure to a local
> thing.
>
>> but their goal is to "protect" Wiki content, so....
>
> Hm, protect from what? Existence? If content is true, why it needs
> protection? If content is not yet complete, guide it to being
> complete.
>
>> The IRC help channel (
>> http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-help) is also a great
>> resource -- especially if it's a time zone issue.
>
> BTW, you do realize that many of new people online and potential new
> editors are not familiar with IRC? Mailing list are already
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 1:11 AM, carl hansen <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
>> Deletionist war.
>
> Instead of waging war, could we open some discussion about middle
> group solutions? For example, what is wrong with having such pages
> tagged with "not an encyclopedia-grade article, possible lacking
> notability and/or significance" and move on? And then we can discuss
> the merits of that tag being applied to a particular article. Which is
> much less new-editor-scary than a warning "page is nominated for
> speedy deletion" and bam, deleted.
>
> Has this ever been put up for a vote by the community?
>
>
> Mitar
>
> --
> http://mitar.tnode.com/> https://twitter.com/mitar_m

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

You are overly simplifying things, One can be both, some things just don't
merit an article, an obscure band working out of a member's garage who have
never had an audience of more than 500 shouldn't have an article because
they really are not notable. On the other hand major artist should have
article. Weighting the balance on that line between what should and
shouldn't be kept is up to the community and which is why they have two
sections of the site dedicated to it (articles for discussion, and deletion
review),

If we do not have checks and balances in place wikipedia will quickly get
overrun with articles on everyone and everything to ever exist regardless
of the actual notability of the person/place/thing/event.

> Hi!
>
> On Twitter I was pointed to:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia>
> This is amazing. I think John Oliver should make a segment "Wikipedia
> Deletionism - how is this still a thing?"
>
> I mean, is this a failure of Wikipedia community governance? Reading
> about this seems deletionists are just a vocal minority who benefit
> from the fact that deletion is much stronger action than keeping
> things. Destruction is always easier than creation.
>
> There are 1536 inclusionists just on English Wikipedia:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Inclusionist_Wikipedians>
> And 280 deletionists:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deletionist_Wikipedians>
> So, how is this still a thing? How can this be put to a vote and
> finally move on? What is Wikipedia's governance process here? Does
> Wikipedia has something like https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/ ?
>
>
> Mitar
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Mitar <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > Thank you for your responses.
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
> >> Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> working
> >> on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> able
> >> to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> >> help / resolution.
> >
> > I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> > make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> > discuss principles behind my experience.
> >
> > I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> > constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> > the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> > reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> > bringing it here.
> >
> > I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> > why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> > one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
> >
> > And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> > clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> > left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> > increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
> >
> > Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> > place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> > the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> > I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> > articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> > readers that they are reading such a new article.
> >
> > (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> > a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> > cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> > issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> > Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> > system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> > people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> > better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> > example, for all sides.)
> >
> >> Discussion (with reason):
> >>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page> >
> > Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> > local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> > cited and might get a better picture.
> >
> > The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> > improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> > deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> > started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> > information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> > nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> > to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
> > why I am writing to such general list like this.)
> >
> >> I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
> >> moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there,
> and I
> >> would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.
> >
> > But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we resolve it for
> > this particular page. Also, if a page is in my sandbox then it is only
> > on me to fix it and improve it. If it is its dedicated namespace then
> > others can help edit it because they can find it. This is the whole
> > power of Wikipedia, that it is not that one person has to write the
> > whole article, but that multiple people can collaborate.
> >
> > Maybe a solution would be that an article can exist under its
> > namespace and link then to this sandbox version saying that article is
> > still in development. In general Wikipedia could be just an directory
> > of pages, some could be edited in Wikipedia and some could be linked
> > elsewhere, until they are seen as worthy of Wikipedia.
> >
> >> The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
> >> procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware
> of
> >> them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion
> and
> >> thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place....
> >
> > I followed instructions which were presented to me in the speedy
> > deletion tag: I opened a talk page for an article and objected to
> > deletion. The result was that next day the article was deleted without
> > any discussion.
> >
> > What structures exist here?
> >
> > I am talking about structures which would prevent deletion, and
> > structures which would help editors explain local significance of
> > articles. Structures which might exist to revert deletion are too
> > late. Editors might not return anymore.
> >
> >> The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to
> create
> >> new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
> >> you have at least 5 (or even 10) very solid citations.
> >
> > I had citations. It seems it was not enough.
> >
> >> Have a friendly editor take a look at the article before attempting to
> move it to the main
> >> space.
> >
> > Friendly editor? How am I supposed to find one? I do not want to be
> > harsh, but I am here to write content, not to mingle with other
> > editors and socialize. I have enough other things in my life. I can
> > understand that for some editors this is their online social
> > space/forum and they know each other. But for me is something where I
> > get to occasionally, I want to fix a thing I care about, and I move
> > on. If I find trash on the floor I pick it up and carry it to the
> > nearest thrash can. I do not want to interact with city utilities
> > system or talk to supervisors.
> >
> > (BTW, talking to a friendly editor comes back to the issue of really
> > strange talk pages. Probably all you got used to them, but they are
> > really a mess.)
> >
> >> It is critical you use the citations to establish notability. Not
> >> everything is notable, and especially if the Wiki-en audience isn't
> >> knowledgeable of the subject matter, it's even more important.
> >
> > I did that. Of course, citations were to Slovenian news articles in
> > Slovenian, only one was in English. And this is why I started the
> > Wikipedia article. To bring more international exposure to a local
> > thing.
> >
> >> but their goal is to "protect" Wiki content, so....
> >
> > Hm, protect from what? Existence? If content is true, why it needs
> > protection? If content is not yet complete, guide it to being
> > complete.
> >
> >> The IRC help channel (
> >> http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-help) is also a
> great
> >> resource -- especially if it's a time zone issue.
> >
> > BTW, you do realize that many of new people online and potential new
> > editors are not familiar with IRC? Mailing list are already
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 1:11 AM, carl hansen <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
> >> You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> >> Deletionist war.
> >
> > Instead of waging war, could we open some discussion about middle
> > group solutions? For example, what is wrong with having such pages
> > tagged with "not an encyclopedia-grade article, possible lacking
> > notability and/or significance" and move on? And then we can discuss
> > the merits of that tag being applied to a particular article. Which is
> > much less new-editor-scary than a warning "page is nominated for
> > speedy deletion" and bam, deleted.
> >
> > Has this ever been put up for a vote by the community?
> >
> >
> > Mitar
> >
> > --
> > http://mitar.tnode.com/> > https://twitter.com/mitar_m>
>
>
> --
> http://mitar.tnode.com/> https://twitter.com/mitar_m>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines> New messages to: [hidden email]> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

Thank you Carl. I will make sure to note re: real world identity going
forward. That was very helpful.

Agree Deletionists seem to be winning -- I've been told a contribution I
made was "too encyclopedic" for Wikipedia, among other nonsense. An entry
about a woman of course. Sometimes it's very absurd, and seems about
someone marking their territory than all of us working together to improve
the content.

It is a detriment to the community, as I know a lot of us adding content
are working really hard, are establishing notability, and using fully cited
information, etc. Really want to add content. But it's definitely not easy.
Blargh.... :-)

Mitar is not being specific about the entry and seems more into discussing
the process.

But for those newer editors needing help, please know that there is help
out there to get under-represented (but notable) entries and content onto
Wikipedia. There are a lot of initiatives and efforts to support that work.
A lot of us would like to make the encyclopedia representative of diverse
and culturally non-Western entities, to make it better, etc.

I also suspect people flock to editing Wikidata instead of Wikipedia
because maybe it's less contested?

>
> Brill Lyle, normally connecting real world identity with Wikipedia id
> within wikipedia
> is contrary to local ethos, but since Mitar links to his real page from
> User page, it's ok in this case.
>
> Mitar says.....
> >
> > Why introducing artificial scarcity?
> >
>
> You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> Deletionist war.
> Your rant is an excellent exposition of the Inclusionist position. When I
> travel among
> Random Articles I often wonder why they deleted AAA but they leave this
> BBB. I guess
> the explanation of that is the sprawling size of English WP, there too much
> to curate
> satisfactorily. Currently I'd say the Deletionists are winning.
>
>

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large community
of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually able
to help you. But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.

Quite frankly, without specifics about the entry -- and the citations used
-- there's nothing anyone can do to help you. It seems this is more about
discussing the process and your experience than finding a solution. Which
is fine, but I was trying to help solve the problem.

As others have said, this is not a new issue, or a newly discovered issue.
Saying the problem is systemic and not taking responsibility for yourself
as an editor by learning some of the requirements and rules of Wikipedia
seems to be a bit of an evasion of responsibility, perhaps?

Notability is definitely something that is highly debated within the
community, and I actually think there has been a lot of improvement in this
area. But if your citations -- or your entry -- isn't well done, I believe
that's when there are problems. Again, I would like to see these citations,
Slovenian or otherwise.

And I agree with John that there should be checks and balances. Many people
or subjects do not merit an article, but many others do.

> Hi!
>
> Thank you for your responses.
>
> On Fri, Jun 24, 2016 at 11:29 PM, Brill Lyle <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
> > Please include your user name and the name of the article you were
> working
> > on. Without any context it's impossible to help you. Thankfully I was
> able
> > to dig and find the page, etc. But include identifying info if you want
> > help / resolution.
>
> I didn't want to include this information because I didn't want to
> make it about my issue in particular. I wanted to give feedback and
> discuss principles behind my experience.
>
> I otherwise had good experience editing Wikipedia. Other editors were
> constructive and often with patience helped me learn how to improve
> the content and related rules of Wikipedia, which also seemed
> reasonable. But this rule I do not get and cannot relate to, thus I am
> bringing it here.
>
> I read that Wikipedia is trying hard to get new editors and this is
> why I am sharing this story here. Because from all my experience this
> one is the most problematic. It really pushes you off.
>
> And it is pretty reasonable that it is problematic. Now that most
> clearly "notable" articles have been already written the one which are
> left will be increasingly more and more in the "gray zone". And
> increasingly local, specialized, where such mistakes might be common.
>
> Maybe this policy for notability and significance had its historic
> place. It focused the community on the core set of articles, improving
> the quality of existing articles and created a name for Wikipedia. But
> I think maybe it is time that it is relaxed and a new level of
> articles is invited in. As I said, a warning could be used to tell
> readers that they are reading such a new article.
>
> (Oh, and please improve talk pages, that way of communicating is also
> a mess, but that one I can understand, it is a technical legacy. It is
> cumbersome, but I can understand it. But it does influence other
> issues then, like this one when you have to discuss something about
> Wikipedia. Why Wikipedia does not simply use some issue-management
> system where people could be opening issues for articles and other
> people and have conversation through that? It would also allow much
> better statistics of how many issues were satisfactory resolved, for
> example, for all sides.)
>
> > Discussion (with reason):
> >
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG#Please_remove_the_tag_from_Poligon_page>
> Yes, it is clear that the editor who deleted it does not understand
> local importance of the article. They could read the news articles I
> cited and might get a better picture.
>
> The issue is here that while new editors can edit pages, see tags to
> improve sources and so on, that is all helpful. But once a page is
> deleted, they are pushed off and cannot do anything anymore. I just
> started with the article. I could improve it through time, get more
> information in why it is important and so on. But once it is deleted
> nothing of this is not possible. I have to go around and find ways how
> to object to this, and I have no idea how to do that. (This is also
> why I am writing to such general list like this.)
>
> > I don't have rights to view the deleted article, but if someone who does
> > moves it to your sandbox or a draft space you could work on it there,
> and I
> > would be happy to take a quick look at it / try to help.
>
> But the problem is systemic. It does not matter if we resolve it for
> this particular page. Also, if a page is in my sandbox then it is only
> on me to fix it and improve it. If it is its dedicated namespace then
> others can help edit it because they can find it. This is the whole
> power of Wikipedia, that it is not that one person has to write the
> whole article, but that multiple people can collaborate.
>
> Maybe a solution would be that an article can exist under its
> namespace and link then to this sandbox version saying that article is
> still in development. In general Wikipedia could be just an directory
> of pages, some could be edited in Wikipedia and some could be linked
> elsewhere, until they are seen as worthy of Wikipedia.
>
> > The structures you propose exist, but if you don't educate yourself on
> > procedures and policies and are a casual editor, you might not be aware
> of
> > them. Not trying to be mean or harsh here but I appreciate your passion
> and
> > thoughts and want you to know there are solutions in place....
>
> I followed instructions which were presented to me in the speedy
> deletion tag: I opened a talk page for an article and objected to
> deletion. The result was that next day the article was deleted without
> any discussion.
>
> What structures exist here?
>
> I am talking about structures which would prevent deletion, and
> structures which would help editors explain local significance of
> articles. Structures which might exist to revert deletion are too
> late. Editors might not return anymore.
>
> > The best solution I've found if as a newish user you are wanting to
> create
> > new articles (as a short stub) is to do it in your Sandbox and make sure
> > you have at least 5 (or even 10) very solid citations.
>
> I had citations. It seems it was not enough.
>
> > Have a friendly editor take a look at the article before attempting to
> move it to the main
> > space.
>
> Friendly editor? How am I supposed to find one? I do not want to be
> harsh, but I am here to write content, not to mingle with other
> editors and socialize. I have enough other things in my life. I can
> understand that for some editors this is their online social
> space/forum and they know each other. But for me is something where I
> get to occasionally, I want to fix a thing I care about, and I move
> on. If I find trash on the floor I pick it up and carry it to the
> nearest thrash can. I do not want to interact with city utilities
> system or talk to supervisors.
>
> (BTW, talking to a friendly editor comes back to the issue of really
> strange talk pages. Probably all you got used to them, but they are
> really a mess.)
>
> > It is critical you use the citations to establish notability. Not
> > everything is notable, and especially if the Wiki-en audience isn't
> > knowledgeable of the subject matter, it's even more important.
>
> I did that. Of course, citations were to Slovenian news articles in
> Slovenian, only one was in English. And this is why I started the
> Wikipedia article. To bring more international exposure to a local
> thing.
>
> > but their goal is to "protect" Wiki content, so....
>
> Hm, protect from what? Existence? If content is true, why it needs
> protection? If content is not yet complete, guide it to being
> complete.
>
> > The IRC help channel (
> > http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=wikipedia-en-help) is also a great
> > resource -- especially if it's a time zone issue.
>
> BTW, you do realize that many of new people online and potential new
> editors are not familiar with IRC? Mailing list are already
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 1:11 AM, carl hansen <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
> > You have been hit by crossfire in the long running Inclusionist vs.
> > Deletionist war.
>
> Instead of waging war, could we open some discussion about middle
> group solutions? For example, what is wrong with having such pages
> tagged with "not an encyclopedia-grade article, possible lacking
> notability and/or significance" and move on? And then we can discuss
> the merits of that tag being applied to a particular article. Which is
> much less new-editor-scary than a warning "page is nominated for
> speedy deletion" and bam, deleted.
>
> Has this ever been put up for a vote by the community?
>
>
> Mitar
>
> --
> http://mitar.tnode.com/> https://twitter.com/mitar_m

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

Thanks you for all the responses. It is really great to see this
various explanations.

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 4:27 PM, John <[hidden email]> wrote:
> If we do not have checks and balances in place wikipedia will quickly get
> overrun with articles on everyone and everything to ever exist regardless
> of the actual notability of the person/place/thing/event.

Hm, while I understand the goal of high quality content, I do not
understand why this has to be so black and white? Existence vs.
non-existence? Why not introducing a third level of content, so that
we would have something like:

- encyclopedic article in the main namespace
- non-encyclopedic draft/stub/sandbox article in the same main namespace
- deleted articles in a special namespace

There could be a special very small set of really deleted articles for
legal reasons.

The main idea I would propose is that all of those articles should be
editable. Even if article is deleted, people should be able to
continue editing it, it should just be made that robots cannot index
them, for example, and that they are under some special namespace. The
reason is that it is much easier if you can edit it and improve it and
then through time maybe things change, maybe somebody becomes notable
through time and their content can be brought back.

The same for so-called non-encyclopedic content which do not merit
entry by current standards. Some of those should be kept with clear
visual tags that content is not yet up to the standard of Wikipedia.
We could even make it so that you first get an full overlay warning
and you have to click through to get to the content.

I think the whole issue of inclusionists and deletionists is so
problematic because we do not step back and observe that there could
be ways to address both concerns with slight changes to the process,
and probably small technical changes.

It is really not necessary to be introducing artificial scarcity.

From what I read this has been going on from 2008 at least, when Paul
Graham included to fix this among his startup ideas:

I might really do not understand something here, but what is the plan
to solve this problem? Are we just waiting for something to happen?
Why are we not discussing how to find a solution which would find a
consensus in the community? In 8 years there should really already be
a solution?

So, what are issues people have with my proposal above? Why would not
this satisfy both groups?

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:19 PM, Brill Lyle <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Mitar is not being specific about the entry and seems more into discussing
> the process.

Oh, I would of course like that we discuss the particular article and
get feedback on it, positive or negative. Anything helps. And I can
learn more. I just do not want us to digress from the topic which for
me is more even important: how to improve this experience for everyone
in the future as well. I will survive. But I am a privileged white
male with a good grasp of technology who experienced various online
communities through years. But what about others? What about people
who might have less command of the English language and would have
issues discussing all this through? Who do not have so much time to
discuss things through?

What we will do about that?

Maybe I should not care and I should just try to address the issues
with my article and move on. But when will then anything change?

On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Brill Lyle <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large community
> of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
> getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually able
> to help you.

Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I more than appreciate all the
help and responses I am getting here. What I mean is that I would hope
that it is possible to edit the Wikipedia without knowing editors and
admins individually. But this would probably mean even more
bureaucratic process, so maybe it is even better like this.
Personally, I believe all editors are good people, with a common goal,
it seems we just disagree sometimes, but this probably also comes from
dissymmetry of information about particular things. Mine about
Wikipedia rules, theirs about a particular topic. Addressing this
dissymmetry is done through discussions.

I see how that comment might offended. Sorry again.

> But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
> engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.

I am trying to present this as an occasional editor. Yes, one solution
to issues I have is to get to know Wikipedia rules and community more,
to get more engaged and integrated. This is a completely valid
approach.

But I wonder, is there an alternative path. What about occasional
editor who might not have resources to embark on this path.
Personally, it seems, I am already walking it. Yes, IRC is doable, of
course. But this is because I get activated when I get frustrated and
start thinking how to solve the problem. Instead of deactivated. My
worry with that comment was that more obstacles are there, harder is
to resolve such issues.

> Quite frankly, without specifics about the entry -- and the citations used
> -- there's nothing anyone can do to help you. ... Which is fine, but I was
> trying to help solve the problem.

Sadly, I do not have its content anymore either. So I do not remember
which sources I put there. I researched things at that time. You do
not have access to the content either?

BTW, this is in fact very strange that creator of the article and
editors of that article cannot access their own content anymore. I
think that might be even illegal in Europe. I should be able to access
my own content based on privacy laws, no?

So, should I find sources again?

One quick thing I found now is that their Facebook page has 7.000 likes:

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

Geni stated: "As so many projects have learned so painfully in the
last decade the
English Wikipedia knows what they are doing."

Sorry, but that is not correct and Mitar's case is evidence of this.

Here we have an article on a cultural organization in Slovenia, which
a cursory glance of Google shows is notable, being deleted outright by
an admin who 1) does not speak Slovenian (and therefore unable to
check sources) and 2) who likely did not do the same cursory glance
that I did.

Culture.si is an encyclopedia project of the Slovenian Ministry of
Culture, devoted to the culture of Slovenia. If Culture.si, which is
not editable by the public, has an article on an organization, then so
should Wikipedia.

On http://www.culture.si/en/Culture.si:About under "Enhance Wikipedia!
Reuse our content" (yes, it is CC licensed!) they state "Wikipedia in
English has over 3 million articles but not many of them are related
to culture in/from Slovenia."

This is, unfortunately, true. There is likely to be more articles on
Game of Thrones, than there is on Slovenian culture.

As to the article in question, it is possible that it needed a little
bit of cleanup; the solution in such instances would be put a
cleanup/notability tag on it, and fix issues through collaborative
editings.

If, at the whim of an admin, it was really required to be moved out of
mainspace it could have been moved to Draft namespace, or even user
space, with a note being left for the editor on their talk page.

This would be good practice, and it astounds me that after all the
words written both on the project and on this very list, no-one has
had the foresight to do one of the two above things for Mitar. Even
now, he is asking on IRC for someone to provide him with the text that
was deleted, and that request is being ignored.

Mitar, don't apologize for anything you have done on Wikipedia, or
said on this mailing list, as you have shed some light on how
Wikipedia fails on many levels with new editors.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

My activity at en.wiki only deals with crosswiki abuse and lta
"management". So don't be afraid of me but frainkly I don't find your
startup incubator to be notable. In other words I don't find it to be
something I expect to find on an encyclopedia.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

> Hi!
>
> I am an occasional editor of Wikipedia, I read it a lot, I edit
> sometimes, and I am at all not familiar with bureaucracies and rules
> Wikipedia community has developed through years (call me lazy, but
> they simply always look too scary and too many for me to even start
> reading them, walls and walls of text). When I interact with Wikipedia
> I thus try to assume what reasonable rules for creating a
> collaborative source of all human knowledge would be.
>
>

I don't know which articles you are referencing and I don't think I need
to know.
The problem, is that less than 5% of the articles are in any way useful.
There are
100s of thousands of articles that simply tell me that X x is moth, or a
beetle and
nothing more. If I know to be looking up X x then I already know that it
is a moth
and not some form of frog. The there are the 100s of thousands of
articles that
simply tell me that A B played one game of professional baseball in
1927. Or the
100s of thousands of articles that simple state that Z is a village in
Iran with 43
people.

Wikipedia is full of this stuff which you can see by pressing the random
article
link a few times. If you find anything comprehensive which isn't also
riddled
with errors. It will almost certainly be a direct cut&paste from
somewhere else.

Simple the site is overflowing with useless junk that monitoring it has
become
impossible. Know one can stop Z from being moved to Cambodia, or A B from
being noted for playing tiddlywinks, or indeed turning X x into a frog.

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Why are articles being deleted?

Thanks for the responses. I think the overarching thought I have is that
Wikipedia needs to learn as much from editors as editors need to learn from
Wikipedia. I'm glad other editors are responding and focusing on this.

I'm doing remote support of an editathon today so I will work on assisting
on cleanup with this article.

> Hi!
>
> Thanks you for all the responses. It is really great to see this
> various explanations.
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 25, 2016 at 6:34 PM, Brill Lyle <[hidden email]>
> wrote:
> > Gadzooks! The comments you made about friendly editors to a large
> community
> > of Wikipedia editors, maybe re-think saying that. I'm having a hard time
> > getting past these comments. *I* am a friendly editor, and am actually
> able
> > to help you.
>
> Oh, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I more than appreciate all the
> help and responses I am getting here. What I mean is that I would hope
> that it is possible to edit the Wikipedia without knowing editors and
> admins individually. But this would probably mean even more
> bureaucratic process, so maybe it is even better like this.
> Personally, I believe all editors are good people, with a common goal,
> it seems we just disagree sometimes, but this probably also comes from
> dissymmetry of information about particular things. Mine about
> Wikipedia rules, theirs about a particular topic. Addressing this
> dissymmetry is done through discussions.
>
> I see how that comment might offended. Sorry again.
>
> > But you have basically said you have too much of a life to
> > engage, IRC is HARD, etc. Huh.
>
> I am trying to present this as an occasional editor. Yes, one solution
> to issues I have is to get to know Wikipedia rules and community more,
> to get more engaged and integrated. This is a completely valid
> approach.
>
> But I wonder, is there an alternative path. What about occasional
> editor who might not have resources to embark on this path.
> Personally, it seems, I am already walking it. Yes, IRC is doable, of
> course. But this is because I get activated when I get frustrated and
> start thinking how to solve the problem. Instead of deactivated. My
> worry with that comment was that more obstacles are there, harder is
> to resolve such issues.
>
> > Quite frankly, without specifics about the entry -- and the citations
> used
> > -- there's nothing anyone can do to help you. ... Which is fine, but I
> was
> > trying to help solve the problem.
>
> Oh, sorry. I thought you already find the page? So it is this page:
>
>